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A framework for aligning needs, abilities and affordances to inform design and practice of educational technologies Pavlo D. Antonenko, Kara Dawson and Shilpa Sahay Pavlo “Pasha” Antonenko is an Associate Professor of Educational Technology in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida. His research interests include design and study of technology-enhanced learning environments and the use of neurotechnologies to understand the mechanisms of attention and cognition during learning. Kara Dawson is a Professor of Educational Technology in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida. Her scholarship focuses on the ways in which educational technologies influence teaching and learning within the contexts of K-12 education and online post-secondary environments. Shilpa Sahay is a PhD student in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on Educational Technology in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida. Her research interests include technology professional development and effective integration of technology in classroom teaching in South Asia and other emerging economies. Address for correspondence: Pavlo D. Antonenko, PO Box 117048, Gainesville, FL 32611-7048, USA. Email:
[email protected]
Abstract This paper addresses the need for enhancing our awareness of user-centered design in educational technology through a more explicit and systematic alignment between the needs of educational technology users (learners and educators) and the affordances provided by the technology. First, we define the term “affordance” and discuss it from the perspectives of cognitive psychology and user interaction design. Next, we propose a taxonomy of functional affordances that builds on prior research and reflects the current trends in the design of educational technologies. The paper is concluded with an illustration of how explicit alignment of needs, abilities, and affordances can inform the evaluation of an educational technology designed to support dyslexic readers. The fourstep framework applied in this analysis helps (a) define user needs, (b) identify a potentially appropriate technology, (c) understand the abilities the technology affords and (d) align technological affordances with the specific needs of the target users. This framework is a step toward increased recognition of the importance of user-centered design of educational technologies; it provides the needed guidance and structure for aligning needs, abilities, and affordances during the design, implementation, and evaluation of technologies for learning and teaching.
Introduction The exponential growth of information and communication technologies in the recent decades has spurred the development of numerous educational hardware and software technologies. Unfortunately, much of this development has been driven by the considerations of what can be developed using the emerging tools and their affordances rather than what should be developed given the needs and goals of learners and educators (Reeves & Reeves, 2015). As a result, both teachers and students are now used to repurposing the available technologies to address their learning and instructional needs (Mishra & Koehler, 2009). While such repurposing is not a bad phenomenon in and of itself (and may actually be beneficial for metacognitive development), educational technology as a field would benefit from providing more explicit frameworks aligning C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic • •
User-centered design is an important approach to designing technological products. Educators and learners repurpose technologies for learning and teaching because many technologies are not designed specifically to meet their needs.
What this paper adds •
• •
•
We emphasize the importance of a more explicit alignment of needs, abilities and affordances during technology conceptualization, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. We review relevant research on affordances in general and educational technology affordances specifically. We provide a taxonomy for analyzing abilities afforded by educational technologies that reflects important current trends such as metacognitive support and personalization support. We propose an analytical framework for evaluating educational technologies that aligns the needs of target users with functional affordances the technology provides.
Implications for practice and/or policy •
•
Technology developers need to develop increased appreciation for user-centered design in education and implement needs-affordances alignment more systematically as they make design decisions. Educators should be provided with more tools to perform needs-affordances analyses so they can make more informed decisions about selecting educational technologies for their classroom.
user needs with technological affordances when designing, applying or evaluating educational technologies. Ideally, the conceptualization and design of an educational technology should begin with discussions around the learner and teacher needs the technology would address and a formal needs assessment that involves surveying or interviewing the target users (Morrison, Ross, & Kemp, 2010). Unfortunately, many educational technology developers neither collect and analyze such data nor consider empirical evidence related to the target population (Fletcher-Watson, 2015). This is particularly evident in the case of one-person development projects that are common in the mobile application arena. Those developers who do work with an instructional designer often fail to explicitly connect the specific needs of their target users (students, teachers, parents, tutors) with the specific affordances that the technology should provide (Margolis, Nussbaum, Rodriguez, & Rosas, 2006). One approach that addresses this issue and helps design, implement and evaluate educational technologies in a systematic and replicable manner is explicit alignment of user needs and technology affordances (Bower, 2008; Greeno, 1994). Despite the long history of discussions of the types of learning and teaching various media and technologies afford (eg, Clark, 1983; Kozma, 1991, 1994; Reiser & Gagne, 1982), little conceptual research has been performed to construct a useful and usable framework for designing and evaluating educational technologies based on the needs—affordances alignment. This paper contributes to the scarce relevant scholarship (Bower, C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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2008; Kirschner, Strijbos, Kreijns, & Beers, 2004) by exploring the concepts of “need” and “affordance,” reviewing pertinent research on affordance types, and proposing a framework for aligning the needs of users and the affordances of technologies in a formal and systematic way. For illustration purposes, the framework proposed here is applied to the evaluation of the potential usefulness of one specific software technology designed to support dyslexic readers WhizzimoTM. Abilities and needs To be useful, a technology must improve interactions between the individual and the environment (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006). The reciprocal relationship between the environment and the individual (or agent) acting on the environment has been traditionally described as an interaction between the environment’s affordances and the agent’s abilities and needs. For example, an individual is able to bend arms and legs and climb, while a ladder provides the affordance to serve as an object for climbing. This interaction is characterized by both usefulness, or utility, and usability because in many cultures ladders have been used for centuries as a “climbing tool” and many individuals will have no trouble perceiving this affordance of a ladder. A crucial component that is missing from this conceptualization of the interaction, however, is the agent’s need to act on the object. Once the need becomes salient, agents seek out and utilize the affordances of the environment to fulfill the need (eg, the need to reach something). This process has been referred to as perception-action coupling (Gaver, 1991; Kirschner et al., 2004). The distinction between abilities and needs is particularly important in the context of designing, using, and evaluating technologies for learning and teaching. Educational technologies should be designed specifically to afford educational tasks that are based on the underlying needs of its intended users—students and teachers, not just based on their abilities. For example, gradebook applications are designed to address teachers’ need to assess students and keep track of student progress in an effective and efficient manner, whereas a thesaurus application is designed to address learners’ need to quickly locate synonyms. Thus, effective design of application affordances can only be achieved by carefully analyzing both the needs and the abilities of the target users. Affordances Affordance as an action possibility Analysis of the usefulness of a technology would be incomplete without evaluating the affordances that the technology provides to address users’ needs and given their abilities. Cognitive psychologist James Gibson introduced the term “affordance” in 1977 in his paper “The Theory of Affordances.” In Gibson’s conceptualization, affordance refers to whatever features an object in the physical environment provides that contribute to the kind of interaction that occurs between the object and the agent. In other words, affordances can be defined as action possibilities latent in the object and dependent on the capabilities of agents. For example, a ladder is a “climbable” object that affords the action of climbing, as long as the agent has the ability to bend arms and legs and climb. The agent’s ability is a crucial component in the environment-agent interaction, one without which such interaction will not occur. The relationship between affordances and abilities was further explored by James Greeno (1994) who concluded that the relativity of affordances and abilities is fundamental and that neither an affordance nor an ability is specifiable in the absence of specifying the other. Affordance as a perceived action possibility An important feature of Gibson and Greeno’s conceptualization of affordances is that they are viewed as action possibilities that depend on the ability of the agent to perform such an action but independent of the individual’s ability to recognize the affordance (Gibson, 1977, 1979; Greeno, C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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1994). The latter aspect of the agent-environment interaction, or the perceived action possibility, has been investigated by user experience design scholars such as Donald Norman (1988, 2013). Through his book “Design of Everyday Things,” Norman (1988) discussed the term “affordances” in the context of human-computer interaction to refer to just those action possibilities that are perceivable by the agent. Norman suggested that action possibilities will remain unnoticed and ultimately unused by the agent, if the agent fails to perceive an affordance in the first place. Norman’s conception of affordances as perceived action possibilities reflects important differences between psychologists’ and user interaction designers’ view of affordances. Gibson and Greeno emphasize the actionable characteristics of the object on the one hand and the agent’s ability to perform such an action on the hand. Thus, this view focuses on the “actual” affordances and the usefulness, or utility, of an object. Norman’s definition highlights the importance of the agent’s perception of the actionable characteristics of the object, and, therefore, is more appropriate for determining the perceived affordances, or the usability, of an object. Usability and utility are two important objectives of product design in general, and user interaction design, in particular (Nielsen, 1994). Without utility the product is useless to the user because the affordances of the product do not match the abilities of the user. Without usability the product is unusable because users fail to connect the affordances of the product with their abilities and needs. The treatment of affordances in this paper focuses on the utility aspect of the interaction because in technology design function precedes form, or in other words, utility precedes usability (Takala, 1984). Designing the affordance (utility) should not be confounded with designing metaphoric representations to increase the perception of such an affordance (usability) and discussions of actual affordances in the design or evaluation process precede discussions of perceived affordances (Bower, 2008; McGrenere & Ho, 2000). Analyzing the actual affordances of a technology separately from its perceived affordances also eliminates the possibility of contextual biases that can be caused by prior knowledge, experiences, and culture of the user, which necessarily mediate the use of any technology. Educational technology affordance-ability taxonomy Germane to analyzing the potential utility of educational technologies is the issue of categorizing technological affordances and aligning them with the abilities they afford the users of the technology. Some authors have made attempts to classify affordances of educational technologies, and this prior work informs the taxonomy proposed herein. For example, Scarantino (2003) categorized affordances as being either mental, basic physical, or nonbasic physical. Gall and Breeze (2005) discussed the affordances offered by different modalities within multimodal text—ie, audio, linguistic, visual, gestural and spatial affordances. Kirschner et al. (2004) presented an affordance framework consisting of technological affordances, social affordances and educational affordances. Hartson (2003) distinguished between cognitive affordances, physical affordances, sensory affordances and functional affordances. In this paper, we describe affordances based on their physical characteristics, emphasizing their functionality and the utility they afford. The Educational Technology Affordance-Ability Taxonomy that we present below is designed to assist both designers and users of educational technologies with the important task of aligning what the users should be able to do in order to meet a need with how the technology affords and supports such abilities. Another benefit of using this taxonomy is it provides a common vocabulary for analyzing the affordances of educational technologies. Using common terms will alleviate the problem of idiosyncrasy in relevant discussions of educational media and technology in both educational research and practice. The proposed taxonomy consists of 10 affordance types adapted from Bower’s (2008) classification for analyzing e-learning technology affordances, Gall and Breeze’s (2005) multimodal text affordances, and Kirschner et al. (2004) framework for C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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collaborative learning technology affordances—three of the handful of analyses focused on defining and evaluating affordances of educational technology products. Following Gibson’s (1979) original conception of affordances, categories of affordances are related to the user’s abilities, thus emphasizing the actual action possibilities they offer the user. Similar to Bower’s (2008) classification, this taxonomy intentionally focuses on the affordance categories related to the functionality of the system intended by the designer (i.e., utility), rather than the subjective evaluation of the system and its affordances by the user (i.e., usability). Unlike the other available affordance taxonomies, this framework proposes categories to evaluate the metacognitive, personalization and adaptation affordances, which are currently discussed as key features for 21st century, intelligent educational technologies (Azevedo & Aleven, 2013; Sawyer, 2014): 1. Media affordances—the type of input and output forms, such as text (“read-ability,” “write-ability”), images (“view-ability,” “draw-ability”), audio (“listen-ability,” “speakability”), video (“watch-ability,” “video-produce-ability”). 2. Spatial affordances—the ability to resize elements within an interface (“resize-ability”), move and place elements within an interface (“move-ability”), and the capacity to zoom in and out (“zoom-ability”). 3. Temporal affordances—the ability to access anytime anywhere and by anyone (accessibility), ability to be recorded (“record-ability”) and played back (“play-ability”), and ability to use synchronously versus asynchronously (“synchronicity”). 4. Navigation affordances—the ability to browse to other sections of a resource and move linearly or nonlinearly within the interface (“browse-ability”), link to other sections within the resource or other resources (“link-ability”), search (“search-ability”), and sort and sequence (“sort-ability”). 5. Emphasis affordances—the ability for the user to highlight aspects of resources (“highlight-ability”) and explicitly direct users’ attention to salient components (“focusability”). 6. Synthesis affordances—the ability to combine multiple tools together to create an integrated media learning environment (“combine-ability”), and the extent to which the functions of tools and the content of resources can be integrated (“integrate-ability”). 7. Metacognitive affordances—the ability to regulate one’s use of the technology to plan (“plan-ability”), monitor (“monitor-ability”), and reflect (“reflect-ability”). 8. Personalization affordances—the ability to personalize the learning environment with avatars, so forth. (“personalizeability”) and customize the look and feel of the environment (“customizability”). 9. Adaptation affordances—the ability of the technology to dynamically change the interface and its features adjusting it to the needs, abilities, and behavior of the user (“adaptability”). 10. Socialization affordances—the ability to support collaboration with others (“collaborateability”) and share (“share-ability”). In addition to the functionally oriented affordance-ability taxonomy described above, it may be useful to conceptualize each of the above affordances fundamentally as direct or indirect. Many technologies employed by learners and educators were designed originally without a particular educational application in mind (eg, MinecraftTM). Yet, they provide important features (or indirect affordances) that may enhance the learning or teaching process (eg, learning important physics concepts in MinecraftEduTM). From this perspective, direct affordance can be defined as an action possibility that was designed with the explicit purpose of addressing a certain need. For example, a direct affordance of Microsoft PowerPointTM is designing business presentations. On the other hand, an indirect affordance might be an action possibility that can be recognized as C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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such by a user despite the fact that it was not designed for that particular purpose. For example, the indirect affordances of Microsoft PowerPointTM have allowed educators to design virtual learning environments ranging from virtual museums to educational games and simulations (eg, Marcovitz, 2012). A framework to design and evaluate educational technologies based on a needsabilities-affordances analysis Bower (2008) has provided a useful illustration for aligning learning tasks with e-learning technologies. In this paper, we take a different approach in that we focus on aligning affordances with the needs of a particular learner group rather than the common learning tasks that can be designed to support learning and teaching. In other words, we examine educational technology affordances at a level that precedes task design. Below we provide an example of how alignment of affordances, abilities and needs can be achieved through a four-step analytical process. Specifically, we illustrate the use of this analytical process by evaluating the potential usefulness of WhizzimoTM, an educational technology that was designed to support dyslexic readers. We chose to focus on dyslexic learners in this illustration because dyslexia is recognized as the most commonly identified learning disability that affects 10–20% of the school-age population in all literate countries (Shaywitz, 2008; Youman & Mather, 2013). First, we demonstrate how user needs, that is dyslexic learners, can be defined using the available evidence, a step that is often missing in the design of educational technologies (Fletcher-Watson, 2015). Second, we identify a potentially useful educational technology to address the needs of this particular learner group—WhizzimoTM. Third, we apply the Educational Technology Affordance-Ability Taxonomy to analyze the affordances of WhizzimoTM to determine what abilities this software affords. Finally, we analyze the direct and indirect affordances of this technology relative to the specific needs of dyslexic learners. Defining user needs Dyslexia is a developmental language disorder that often runs in families and is characterized by primary deficits in word-level reading, decoding, spelling and oral reading fluency (Mather & Wendling, 2012). These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and background knowledge (Shaywitz, 2008). Mather and Wendling (2012) describe two types of deficits in dyslexic learners: cognitive and academic. Cognitive deficits include phonological awareness, phonological memory, orthographic awareness, rapid naming, processing speed and working memory. Academic deficits are represented by letter-sound knowledge, word decoding (real word and nonword reading), reading fluency and spelling. Specifically, Mathers and Wendling (2012) define the following characteristics of dyslexia: • • • • • • •
Difficulty rhyming words. Difficulty aligning letter names and letter sounds of the alphabet. Confusions of letters and words with similar visual appearance (eg, b and d, was and saw). Confusions of letters with similar sounds (eg,/f/and/v/). Reversals and transpositions of letters and words that persist past the age 7 (eg, p and q, and on and no). Difficulty arranging letters in the correct order when spelling. Difficulty retaining the visual representation of irregular words for reading and spelling (eg, once).
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Figure 1: A screenshot of the WhizzimoTM interface • • • •
Spelling the same word in different ways on the same page (eg, wuns, wunce, for once). Spelling the words the way they sound rather than the way they look (eg, sed for said). Difficulty pronouncing multisyllabic words correctly (eg, supposebly). Slow word perception that affects reading rate and fluency.
Identifying a potentially useful technology A host of software applications for the Web, mobile, and desktop platforms have been developed to help and support dyslexic learners. Focusing just on reading, an analysis of Google Play StoreTM and Apple StoreTM application descriptions revealed that at least 236 mobile apps claimed to assist dyslexic learners with reading. WhizzimoTM was identified as one of these applications. According to whizzimo.com, it is a “powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use platform for multisensory reading and spelling instruction.” It was exhibited twice at the International Dyslexia Association’s annual conferences and is a featured application on a website for those who homeschool children with dyslexia (homeschoolingwithdyslexia.com). As of April 1, 2015, WhizzimoTM provided a web-based and a mobile interface for its users and had a 4.5 star rating and 6 user reviews on the Apple StoreTM but it was not available as a mobile application for the Android platform. The web application and iPadTM application are identical in both visual design and functionality. The design of WhizzimoTM employs the metaphor of a blackboard (Figure 1). The top portion of the board represents a collection of tiles (the tile bank) selected from a large “tile drawer” and the bottom section shows rows on which the tiles can be arranged to produce words and sentences. Each tile in the tile bank can represent a letter or a combination of letters such as prefixes, suffixes, consonant digraphs and trigraphs and so forth. Consonant and vowel tiles are color-coded to assist with visual search. As the tiles are dragged from the tile bank onto a row and assembled into a syllable or a word, they snap together with an audible click sound. The interface also features a toolbar at the very top of the screen that (a) allows users to select the marker tool and choose the ink color for marker annotations, (b) use the eraser tool to remove any markings, (c) use the undo button to undo prior marker actions, (d) change the case of the letters in the tiles from lower case to upper case and vice versa, (e) a button to clear the screen of all markings to only show the words produced by the user using tiles, (f) a button to increase or decrease the C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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number of rows in the workspace in the bottom portion of the screen and (g) a trash can button that resets the entire screen, an action that cannot be undone. An important feature of the interface is the transparency screen that can be lowered over the blackboard and serves to provide markings and annotations over the tiles. Much like a physical transparency screen, the WhizzimoTM transparency screen can be pulled down (revealing the annotations) or up to hide the annotations. Additionally, the software provides several options for customizing the appearance of the letters in tiles, including three tile fonts (Arial, Century Gothic, and Open Dyslexic), background color for the blackboard, number of rows and columns for the tile bank grid at the top of the screen, as well as tile and tile font color for each category of tiles in the tile drawer (ie, vowels, consonants, consonant digraphs and trigraphs, silent letter combinations etc.) Understanding what abilities the technology affords When one has identified a potentially useful technology to address the given learner or educator needs, it is important to analyze what abilities (or action possibilities, Gibson, 1977) the technology affords. Table 1 demonstrates how the Educational Technology Affordance Taxonomy can be used to determine what types of abilities WhizzimoTM might afford its potential users. Of the 24 possible affordances, WhizzimoTM integrates 11 of them including all the affordances within Emphasis and Synthesis categories. Aligning learner needs with functional affordances While knowing what a user might be able to do with a technology is useful, it is important to consider what learner needs the identified technology addresses and whether the technology was intentionally designed to meet certain needs, ie, understand what direct affordances the technology provides given the needs of the target user group. For example, WhizzimoTM enables users to select and organize tiles of letter and letter combinations to create words that rhyme but there are no preset tiles with rhyming words making this an indirect affordance. Table 2 provides an analysis of need-affordance alignment. It is informed by research on the characteristics of dyslexic learners (Mather & Wendling, 2012), analysis of the design of WhizzimoTM, and the distinction between direct and indirect affordances. The two tables presented above complement each other serving to organize and align key information for understanding what abilities the technology might afford in various learning contexts (Table 1) and understanding specific functional affordances relative to the learner needs (Table 2). Using this analytical process, we found that WhizzimoTM supports primarily orthographic (visual) coding and decoding but not phonological awareness, accuracy and fluency. While the program provides visual, tactile and kinesthetic opportunities for dyslexic learners, the lack of audio affordances such as listen-ability and speak-ability limits the multisensory experience shown to be so effective when working with this population (Vickery, Reynolds, & Cochran, 1987). In addition, it currently does not employ any social peer support mechanisms discussed in the literature as potentially useful (Gibson & Kendall, 2010; Humphrey, 2003). It also does not provide direct or indirect affordances for personalizing or adapting the environment to the learner (Azevedo & Aleven, 2013) despite the fact that dyslexia is conceptualized as a spectrum of reading difficulties that various learners experience (Shaywitz, 2008). Finally, because tiles are not preset for most tasks and because the system does not provide feedback on the accuracy of the assembled words, it is likely best used by dyslexic learners with a more knowledgeable other (peer, parent, or teacher) who understands the special learning needs of this population. In conclusion, WhizzimoTM may serve as a useful technology for teaching and coaching but our analysis demonstrates that it was not designed with the direct affordances necessary for independent learning. C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Table 1: Abilities Afforded by WhizzimoTM Media
Spatial
Temporal
Navigational
Emphasis
Synthesis
Personal
Social Metacognitive
Adaptive
Read-ability View-ability Listen-ability Speak-ability Write-ability Draw-ability Watch-ability Move-ability Resize-ability Zoom-ability Accessibility Record-ability Play-ability Synchronicity Browse-ability Search-ability Sort-ability Link-ability Highlight-ability Focus-ability
Ability to read letters and words
Ability to spell letters and words Ability to use marker to draw and annotate
Ability to move and rearrange letter tiles
Ability to access software anytime, anywhere
Ability to interact with the software in real time
Combine-ability
Integrate-ability
Ability to use the marker to highlight Ability to use the marker and transparency screen to focus learner’s attention Ability to combine media (visual, tactile) to engage the user at a deeper level Ability to integrate the use of various tools (marker, letter tiles, transparency screen) to achieve an learning objective
Personalizability Customizability
Ability to customize the look and feel of the tile bank and blackboard background.
Collaborate-ability Share-ability Plan-ability Monitor-ability Reflect-ability
Ability to use the transparency screen to review prior work.
Adapt-ability
Discussion The conceptual research on affordances, abilities, and needs discussed in this paper has led us to propose an Educational Technology Affordance-Ability Taxonomy and a four-step framework that can be used to (a) define user needs, (b) identify a potentially useful technology, (c) understand what abilities the technology affords its users and (d) determine what direct and indirect affordances the technology provides relative to the specific needs of the target user group. Grounded in decades of psychological, educational and user interaction design research, this framework and taxonomy can serve as both a reminder and a practical tool for educational technology designers and developers to pay adequate attention to the needs of the intended audience, as they design the affordances of their technologies. The taxonomy and framework proposed in this paper contribute to increased awareness of the role of need-ability-affordance analysis and more meaningful design and application of C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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Table 2: Needs-affordances alignment for using WhizzimoTM with dyslexic learners Dyslexic learner needs
Technology affordances
Indirect affordance: ability to select and organize tiles of letters and letter combinations to create words that rhyme. (no preset tiles with rhyming words) Difficulty aligning the letter names No affordance: no text-to-speech engine or prerecorded letter and letter sounds of the alphabet sounds Direct affordance: ability to select and organize tiles of letters Confusions of letters and words and letter combinations to practice spelling and reading with similar visual appearance letters and words with similar visual appearance (eg, b and d, was and saw) Confusions of letters with similar No affordance: (no text-to-speech engine or prerecorded letter sounds (eg,/f/and/v/) sounds) Indirect affordance: ability to select and organize tiles of letters Reversals and transpositions of and letter combinations to practice spelling and reading letters and words that persist past letters and words with reversal and transposition (no preset the age 7 (eg, p and q, and on tiles) and no) Difficulty arranging letters in the Indirect affordance: ability to select and organize tiles of letters correct order when spelling in a sequence to practice letter ordering but there are no preset tiles and feedback is not provided by the system Indirect affordance: Ability to select and organize tiles of letters Difficulty retaining the visual to practice spelling and reading of irregular words but representation of irregular words there are no preset tiles and feedback is not provided by for reading and spelling (eg, once) the system Spelling the same word in different Indirect affordance: ability to select and organize tiles of letters and letter combinations to practice spelling of irregular ways on the same page (eg, words but there are no preset tiles and feedback is not wuns, wunce, for once) provided by the system No affordance as the software does not use a text-to-speech Spelling the words the way they engine to read words and practice spelling them sound rather than the way they look (eg, sed for said) Difficulty pronouncing multisyllabic No affordance as the software does not use a speech words correctly (eg, supposebly) recognition engine that might be used to correct pronunciation Slow word perception that affects Indirect affordance: ability to select and organize tiles of letters reading rate and fluency to practice spelling and reading words but no specific affordances for fluency improvement (eg, fluency score, leaderboard etc.) Difficulty rhyming words
educational technologies to improve learning and teaching. Designers and evaluators can use the Educational Technology Affordance-Ability Taxonomy as a checklist to identify the types of abilities and affordances provided by the technology and generate insights on what additional abilities may need to be supported by technological affordances for more effective scaffolding of learning. The taxonomy also provides a set of shared terms that designers and educators can use to discuss the utility of educational technologies relative to the abilities and affordances that they support. Technologies could potentially be compared and contrasted based on the categories of the taxonomy to allow educators to make more informed decisions when selecting educational technologies. Educators can also employ the four-step framework discussed here and the example we have provided to evaluate the needs of their learners in a more systematic and evidence-based manner, be more analytical and reflective in their selection of educational technologies, and have a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the technologies they use before they C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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implement them in the classroom. An important limitation of the analytical tools we propose is that they may not be usable by some important stakeholder groups that use educational technologies (eg, parents, tutors and informal educators) or technology designers and developers that have little or no background in psychology and education. More conceptual and empirical work should be performed to improve the taxonomy presented in this paper and extend its application to put user needs and abilities front and center and inform a more informed and systematic design of technologies for learning and teaching. Statement on open data This requirement is not applicable because we are not reporting an empirical study. Statement on ethics This requirement is not applicable because we are not reporting an empirical study. Statement on conflicts of interest We have not received any funding or other support to present the views expressed in this paper. The educational technology that was used for illustrative purposes—WhizzimoTM—was selected because it is an application designed to support learning to read. We have tried to provide an honest and objective analysis of this technology’s affordances relative the needs of dyslexic learners and we hope BJET’s readership will benefit from browsing this example of aligning user needs with technological affordances. References Azevedo, R., & Aleven, V. (2013). Metacognition and learning technologies: An overview of the current interdisciplinary research. In R. Azevedo, & V. Aleven (Eds.), International handbook of metacognition and learning technologies (pp. 1–16). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Springer. Bower, M. (2008). Affordance analysis–matching learning tasks with learning technologies. Educational Media International, 45(1), 3–15. Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4), 445–459. Fletcher-Watson, S. (2015). Evidence-based technology design and commercialisation: recommendations derived from research in education and autism. Tech Trends, 59(1), 84–88. Gall, M. & Breeze, N. (2005). Music composition lessons: the multimodal affordances of technology. Educational Review, 57, 415–433. Gaver, W. W. (1991, April). Technology affordances. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (pp. 79–84). New York, NY: ACM. Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: toward an ecological psychology (pp. 67–82). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Gibson, S. & Kendall, L. (2010). Stories from school: dyslexia and learners’ voices on factors impacting on achievement. Support for Learning, 25(4), 187–193. Greeno, J. G. (1994). Gibson’s affordances. Psychological Review, 101, 2, 336–342. Hartson, R. H. (2003). Cognitive, physical, sensory, and functional affordances in interaction design. Behaviour & Information Technology, 22(5), 315–338. Humphrey, N. (2003). Facilitating a positive sense of self in pupils with dyslexia: the role of teachers and peers. Support for Learning, 18(3), 130–136. Kaptelinin, V. & Nardi, B. (2006). Acting with technology: activity theory and interaction design. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kirschner, P., Strijbos, J. W., Kreijns, K., & Beers, P. J. (2004). Designing electronic collaborative learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 52(3), 47–66. Kozma, R. B. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179–211. C 2016 British Educational Research Association V
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